Stay By My Side, Guide Me
by ChimeBells
Summary: Gift-fic to my friend, Bels./   The Phantom of the Opera: murderous, mad, obsessive psychopath, right? Not so much. A take at my view of Erik's true character, and Christine's uncovering of his true face, and her heart's true desire.   /Raul fans, beware/
1. Down Once More

"Down once more to the dungeons of my black despair…"

The beautiful and, once, sweet voice of Erik echoed in the damp atmosphere of the cellars below the Opera house. His unbreakable and unwavering timbre cracked under his rage, as his tone became increasingly harsh. His eyes were set ahead instead of transfixed to me, as they had been the first time he'd led me down those tunnels.

Then again, the last time around I hadn't yet betrayed him and crushed his heart during the confession of love he'd spent his life preparing.

"…Down we plunge to the prison of my mind!"

As for said confession, I had been tempted to say yes. So tempted, in fact, that I would have been in favor of ignoring the hundred-people audience below us and tying together our lips at once, since we could not possibly have performed the whole wedding ceremony as we had been, in the lack of a priest.

"Down that path, into darkness deep as hell!"

Erik's voice escalated then, and I knew I deserved every bit of the wrath being brought down upon me. Things had happened fast, and all I could think about was how much I wished I could turn back time.

While on stage that night, up on the bridge, I'd completely forgotten and almost foregone the reason I'd agreed to play a part in "Don Juan Triumphant". I had previously decided that if Raul and the Opera's foolish managers weren't to be reasoned with, and were stubbornly set on going forth with their half-cooked plan, I would protect Erik from whatever they came up with, the stage being the best general area from which to act against the plotting business men.

And God knew my angel had needed protection from the gun I'd seen my supposed fiancée tuck into his belt as he made his way to his, no, Erik's box earlier.

No sooner than when I'd spotted the afore-mentioned gun raised and sharply pointed at the acting Don Juan, who had remained blissfully unaware of his impending doom, had I realized that I desperately needed to forge some sort of distraction shocking enough to make Raoul's aim falter, if only for a second.

There had been no time to ponder, and so, I had acted on impulse. I did not hold myself at fault for wanting to shield Erik from vengeful men who didn't know how kind and loving he could be, however, removing his mask as he stood in glory before Paris's _crème de la crème_, a step away from the realization of his life-long dream, had been the most sinful act of humiliation I could have committed against him.

It had hurt me too. To crush him, I mean. I could have jumped off the wooden bridge to end my pitiful existence right that moment, had my feet not been rooted to the floor, inconveniently, as his eyes had held mine with almost innocent adoration and his, for once, ungloved hands had rested on my shoulders in a tight, but not hurtful, grip. The smile he'd worn while singing his last lines to me still lingered on his face, almost like an after-image left behind by a too quick carriage.

When the mask had slid off, it had taken a curt moment for the full image of Erik's disfigured face to settle within the watchers' minds. Taking advantage of this silent split-second, I'd torn my gaze away from my strange angel and chanced a look up at Box 5. The dreaded weapon in Raul's hand pointed down at the floor, its wielder being too shocked to aim straight at its target. I would have sighed in relief, had I not been aware of the tension ready to explode in the theater.

Then, the screams began.

I'd kept my eyes on Erik's as his ghostly smile finally faded, along with all the color in his face, which made me worry that maybe his heart had stopped and he would drop in a dead faint anytime then. I saw despair in his eyes – despair greater than the horrified audience's as they screamed and howled in a ridiculous and misplaced symphony of terror –, and confusion danced in his puncturing orbs until anger finally settled in them.

I was sure that, by the way he'd glanced up calculatingly for a moment, he had wanted to release his ire on the scurrying people below, probably by dropping the ceiling, somehow, or maybe the new crystal chandelier hanging in the center of it upon them. That thought was gone a second later, though, and I'd felt Erik's arm encircle my waist barely an instant before the wood under my feet inexplicably vanished.

As the air had rushed up to meet me and give me an extremely uncomfortable chill underneath my skirts, I had wanted nothing more than to cling to my Phantom, if only for the brief seconds we fell; knowing his only reason for holding me then was to keep me from drifting away in the drop.

My eyelids had shut close as we neared the floor, in the expectance of being met with cold, hard stone or concrete in the near future. None of those had the chance to connect with my falling body, however. I'd opened my eyes to see Erik's face a few inches above mine, and one look down later had clarified that I'd fallen right into his arms.

I wasn't allowed any time to dwell on that, as Erik had immediately let me down, grabbed my wrist, and started pulling me along the dark passage toward the lake in an uncharacteristically ungraceful manner.

Right then, his voice ripped me from my reminiscing, sounding frustrated through all the anger on the surface.

"Why, you ask, was I bound and chained to this cold and dismal place?"

Turning to face me abruptly, Erik saw my wince of surprise at his sudden action, and likely interpreted it as a grimace of pain, because his grip on my wrist immediately loosened a great deal.

Still pulling me toward the lake - it becoming gradually visible in the torchlight, as we approached - Erik placed the burning flame in a harness protruding from the stone wall, and I saw the weary traces of disappointment begin to age the unmarred portion of his face.

"Not for any mortal sin, but the wickedness of my abhorrent face!"

That last line had sounded more like he was talking to himself than still raging at me.

I remained quiet throughout the ride across the lake, aware of the fact that nothing I said or did would be enough to placate Erik's temper. My eyes were glued to his unreadable face, studying every line of it, making barely any distinction between the clashing appearances of each side of it.

It was halfway through the crossing that I came to the puzzling realization that it no longer disturbed me to gaze upon his disfigurement. Maybe it never had bothered me in the first place, after I'd come to terms with the shock of seeing the mask off for the first time.

Erik's head snapped up, suddenly, and he looked around for a minute, until his eyes finally found what they wanted, above us, and stared at something only they could see for maybe a second or two. I searched for the source of his interest, but found nothing, and, a moment later, I heard him sigh and give another push to the water with the long paddle he had in his hands.

Finally, after much unbearable silence only broken by the _swishing_ of water, the black gondola touched the shore of the underground lair, and my eyes found themselves unable not to swirl around in their sockets just as they had the first time I'd been down there, amazed by the sheer grandiose nature of the place. Unlike me, Erik wasted no time dwelling in his own choice of architecture and design for his home before jumping off the little boat, his movements causing not a ripple to disturb the still lake below.

Even if he was a man, there was no denying the ghost-like fluidness he had about him. Following that line of thought, I had to fight to the back of my mind many different ideas of situations in which that fluidness would be a nice advantage.

After going about tying the gondola to shore and putting away the row, Erik turned to me and did the last thing I had expected from him, at the time: he offered me his hand to help me off the boat, giving me a very _déjà vu _feeling. As he had plainly ignored me throughout the whole boat ride, I had indeed supposed the cold treatment would continue – no more than what I deserved, really.

The self-proclaimed Phantom led me up the stairs to where familiar red drapes hung from the uneven ceiling. I looked into the partition that opened behind them to see the perfect and almost alive replica of me standing inside, perfectly beautiful in the luxurious wedding dress and smiling mindlessly for all to see. As much as the figurine had scared me before, I couldn't deny that both the mannequin and the dress were nothing short of the work of a genius.

My attention was drawn back to the angel…no, the man in front of me when his hands came to suddenly rest upon my shoulders. His grasp was firm, but gentle, and I could almost feel his desire not to hurt me as he eyed me carefully, before a distressed expression latched itself upon his face, and he hunched over slightly, in apparent defeat.

"Hounded up by everyone;

Met with hatred everywhere;

No kind words from anyone;

No compassion anywhere…"

Loneliness. That was the one thing I could see in his glistening eyes as he sang, and his voice carried more human emotion than I had thought possible for a simple tune to contain.

I cursed my petrified self in that moment, for having no idea of what to do in order to comfort the tortured soul of the angel who had saved me from solitude for ten years.

Then, his breaking voice uttered the question I dreaded to ever have to answer:

"Christine…why?

And I could not, for the life of me, find my voice, or even words to answer.


	2. Proposal?

"Why?"

Erik's question hung in the air, and I had not the wits to respond. I could not think of the answer he deserved so much from me.

Closing his eyes at my petrified behavior, my angel directed me towards his beautifully decorated bedroom, at the opposing side of the lair, and, without so much as a word, handed me the luxurious dress he'd removed from the mannequin a minute prior.

Once inside, with the fine black drapes lowered around the room, I allowed myself a moment to breath deeply and try to qualm the raging fire that seemed to burning my insides to ashes. I could not understand what it was that ailed me; whether my desire for the man outside had begun to grow desperate, or whether my anger at myself and general Parisian society had started rearing its ugly head.

As I dressed, unwilling to test my luck by disobeying Erik in the current situation, I thought back to the wicked mannequin that could very well pass for my twin sister. With the dress removed from it, I was very glad to find that there wasn't a perfect replica of my body beneath the garments…yet. Was he planning to complete the model, body and all? I had to be blushing madly at that thought.

Anger took over me, blossomed from my beet-red embarrassment at the hypothesis of having my privacy intruded so. That was my state of mind as I left the seclusion of the black drapes and strode across the lair to where Erik stood, staring at his sick, undressed creation, and therefore, I had not near enough self-restraint to keep my previously out-of-working-order throat from bringing up angered, hasty words.

"Have you gorged yourself at last in your lust for blood?"

Despite having heard me and being obviously aware of my petty displeasure with the situation, looking up at me with glistening light-green eyes, Erik smiled at the visage of me in the dress he'd made.

It wasn't even one of his sensual, extremely enticing grins, not in the least like the ones he had exhibited during our little mind-game up at the stage during _Don Juan Triumphant_. Still, it had me almost tumbling down to the floor when my legs decided it was time for them to become some brand of flavored jelly. Under normal circumstances, or as normal as circumstances could ever get in that Opera House, that smile could have made me throw modesty to the wind and throttle him right there.

Normal was not what one would describe an embarrassed woman as, though.

"Am I now to be prey to your lust for flesh?"

At that moment, even though I knew what I was doing to be unspeakably unfair, my voice just seemed to spring out on its own. Of course, my unrelenting anger fueled the fire a great deal, but I would have never said anything of that nature to my Phantom had I been in my right mind. Or so I thought, at least.

Erik had every right to want to murder me by then. If anything, he should have already had snapped my neck with his Punjab lasso, or maybe he should have thrown me into his torture chamber to rot for a lifetime – that would probably have done the trick, no pun intended.

Not really expecting such a bare-hearted answer, I felt myself go tense when he begun singing anew.

"This fate which condemns me to wallow in blood has also denied me the joys of the flesh"

Erik's hand touched my skin, then; my cheek, with tenderness and gentleness. All thoughts of shame and indignation vanished from me, for I had not the strength to rage anymore, and neither the emotional scope to accommodate anger in my heart whilst love occupied it almost whole.

Dazed and daydreaming for a moment, composed no more than some silly, flirtatious performer, I caught myself staring at Erik's lean, exposed chest. Warmth flooded to my cheeks, and, unwilling to expose myself by advertising to him my moment of weakness, I did not hesitate in brusquely turning away from the Phantom, exasperated.

The consequence of that mistake was Erik's hand dropping from its place upon my face and, after stroking a lock of my hair, retracting to rest dejectedly at his side.

The pain-laced tone of his voice confused me and saddened me the same. I was confused because there was no way that all that agony he exhibited, albeit probably unaware of doing so, came from only the curse he thought was his deformity…was there? I could only speculate, for I realized I knew nothing about him. I knew nothing of his suffering and of his joys, being blissfully oblivious of the wonderful mystery that was the Phantom.

"This face, the infection which poisons our love…"

The line, _'Not an infection, a feature that makes you who you are,' _was what I _should _have said, then, in order to show him my disagreement with his previous statement. I had it all made up in my mind, all ready for the uttering, and yet it refused to come out of thought status and into actual words. If the cause was nervousness or something else, I did not know.

"This face, which earned a mother's fear and loathing;

A mask, my first unfeeling scrap of clothing;"

His words registered in my head with a boulder-light weight, and my strained expression was sure to be betraying all of that to Erik, even with me facing away from him, ahead at the entrance to the lair.

I tried to imagine Erik as a child, wearing his porcelain white mask and laying alone in the dark, while a thunderstorm raged outside. Somehow, the fear in the hypothetical child's eyes and trembling body seemed out of place for one such as the Phantom, whom I had assumed to be unafraid of everything from the moment I met him.

Still, the imaginary child drew me into my own mind for a while, and all I wanted to do was hold him and care for him until the storm passed.

My shoulders sagged with a feeling of helplessness, and I felt Erik move beside me.

"Pity comes too late;

Turn around and face your fate:

An eternity of _this_ before your eyes."

As he placed the mannequin's perfectly crafted gurney and veil on my head in a bout of anger, I turned, finally, and stared fixatedly at the warped side of his face, unflinching. He looked at me in wonder, and I had to fight back a smug grin from this one predictable reaction of his.

Blinking, he walked forth and placed in my hand the engagement ring he'd taken from me at the Masquerade Ball, and I closed my fingers around it, my heart soaring with the fact that there was no other meaning to this action than a marriage proposal. I had to admit I was a tiny bit disappointed that he hadn't gone through the whole "getting down on one knee and slipping the ring on my finger" ritual, but that little detail could be ignored as easily as I could sing by the sheer marvel of the moment.

I was going to get married!


End file.
